Earlier this year, I had been working toward fixing up an art studio at my house. You can see in these past Home Art Studio Project posts I was going to make the space in the backyard, up against the cottage wall. Long story short, I ran into some issues with uneven floor and a falling apart fence, so all summer I worked in a corner in the house and in the backyard.
Then fall arrived and I felt ongoing anxiety about turning a corner of the living room into a workspace and never dealing with this room. It had been an office for my boyfriend, then what felt like a storage room/work space for for me (see photos below) and now I love that it is a place we can both work in. I was insistent that I don't want to take it over as my own since he shoots photos and draws too.
Just looking at this wall makes me shudder. What a disaster it became. It's pretty embarrassing to share this, but this is the state it turned into at the end of the summer. Because the room gets pretty warm in the summer, I basically didn't work in here and it was like a neglected storage room.
This isn't a great photo, but you can see how dark the sandy brown walls made it look. The piles, oh the piles.
The aftermath of painting. My speckled phone and encrusted hands.
I think I was getting a little crazed by this point.
Art studio at the Linea de Costa art residency
So first off, I'll show you my inspiration for the room. And yes, I understand that this is the prettiest picture in this whole post. Last November, while on a residency in Spain, I had the world's most beautiful art studio. It had an ocean view, was pristinely white, plants everywhere and hints of blues. While my results weren't exactly the same, I knew that I wanted to paint the new workspace white, to be a lot less cluttered and have plants.
And here it is. The new studio has bright white walls, empty surfaces to work on and one hanging plant (planter by RossLab). Now, you might want to compare this with the first picture. BIG DIFFERENCE, huh? By the next post, I'll have worked in here for a bit and will give more details on what was done. Thanks so much to Bryan for the help in making it look like this.
For now, I am ready to be productive in this clean, bright new shared space.